Holiday hoop thoughts and farewell to a historic track

My apologies that it’s been a couple weeks since I’ve written. The Saints have been idle and I’ve been busy getting ready for the holidays, but that’s no excuse. I’m back today with a bit about Siena’s upcoming game against Hofstra as well as a bonus look at one of the greatest races ever run at one of horse racing’s most historic venues.

I’m looking forward to getting back on the wagon with Siena on Monday when the Saints battle Hofstra. With such a young team, signs of improvement is all you can ask for and the team will look to continue the momentum they started to gather in Buffalo.

Courtesy: AP

The win over Niagara was solid and the loss to Canisius, well, you just tip your cap and realize that it was the Griffs’ day.

With a couple weeks of practice time during this break for final exams, the team is going over what they installed from the start of the season as well as implementing some new elements for the conference season.

Hofstra is 3-6 and was picked ninth and last in the CAA in the preseason poll. None of their wins (FDU, Hartford, Central Connecticut) are terribly impressive and they’ve already lost to Monmouth and Manhattan out of the MAAC.

However, the Pride do have a lot of size with all five starters between 6-foot-5 and 6-foot-8. One interesting player is top scorer Zeke Upshaw, who is a graduate student. He scored 100 total points in 62 career games at Illinois State over three years. In just nine games this year, he has already scored 179 points! Which of course raises the question, what the heck was going on at Illinois State with this guy?

Hofstra is led by head coach Joe Mihalich, who is very familiar to Siena fans after 15 years as the head man at Niagara. He brought over two of his best players from the Purple Eagles, Juan’ya Green and Ameen Tanksley, but neither are eligible this season.

It should be a good matchup. In my opinion, the CAA is on par with the MAAC, if not a little worse actually. It is definitely a game that Siena can win and with the home crowd behind the Saints, look for a good performance from the home team.

Tom and I are on Time Warner Cable SportsChannel statewide at 7 p.m. In fact, virtually every home game the rest of the season will be televised on Time Warner.

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My travels have prevented me from seeing much of the Orange. I missed the St. John’s game and I’m not thrilled that I have to watch ESPN3 to watch the team play High Point tonight. I get ESPN3 on my computer, but I do miss the days when Time Warner picked up almost all these non-conference games.

I thought the team was overrated at #8 to start the year so you can imagine what I think about their ranking now at #2. The team has clearly played well so far, but Coach Boeheim has cautioned that the team is not all many have made them out to be.

Upcoming matchups with Villanova and into the ACC schedule will let us know just how good this Orange team is.

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It may be a bit before I post again as I’m headed to my parents’ house in Florida for Christmas. We alternate every other year between Florida and the Capital Region for Christmas and this is our year to fly south.

I’m looking forward to some beach time, relaxing and of course, golf in late December. It doesn’t get much better than that!

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We close out today’s blog post with a shout out to one of horse racing’s most historic venues, Hollywood Park in southern California.

After 75 years of racing, the track will run its final card this Sunday. I’ve never been to Hollywood Park, and I didn’t bet much on their races, particularly after they went to a synthetic surface.

But I do know this. One of the greatest and most exciting races in racing history took place there. And it is also arguably racecaller Tom Durkin’s greatest call of all time (the other contender for this title is Personal Ensign’s win in the ’88 BC Distaff).

Let’s pick it up at the top of the stretch. Farewell Hollywood Park!

Robert Lee

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